Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Forty-seven down (Five to go.) (Why is this 47 and the subject says 48? I'm so confused!)

Accomplished Last Week:

Finished Level One Step Four, with the exception of roping my son into videoing "Coming" with me. (No, that's not a duplicate from last week. Last week I was trying to get him to video Step THREE Come!) The video for the entire step is done, with the exception of that lone clip!

We also plowed on ahead to Level Two, working on Focus, Leash, Sit (stay), Down (stay), Go to Mat, and Handling body parts. Whew!

I like the Daily Practice section, and will probably keep it around.

I dusted off my BZDogs Website, adding in some puppy related low-hanging fruit, and then sat there feeling guilty that I had let it go for as long as I did.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Worked on sits and downs and stays, oh my! Finally roped my son into supplying the legs needed to video "Come", and therefore was able to release the Level One Step Three video (see Videos below).

Had an unexpected visitor stop by the house. I probably get just one or two a year... and it showed.

Zachary was horrible, bounding around like a kangaroo. Henry was bouncing, too, and I'm still not sure if it was Henry setting off Zachary, or the other way around. Thankfully, it should (statistically) be at least another six months before any other unexpected visitors set foot in the house, and so I'm not going to worry about it.

On the bright side, people are so distracted by my dogs bad behavior that they don't even notice that the house is a mess! The other bright side was visitor's perplexity at the bouncy behavior, given how well Zachary is when she's seen him "outside".

Finally, I think this week's Wordless Wednesday has some of the best pictures I've ever taken. As most of my pictures are pretty mundane, "best" is obviously relative. (Ok, fine, I'll admit it, I was pretty tickled when I saw how they came out!)

Well, it's Turkey Week in my corner of the world, which means I'll either have lots of time (due to the holiday) or no time (due to the holiday.)

Holiday's are like that around here - Feast or Famine (pardon the pun) when it comes to free time.

Zachary is still on a diet, and thus still out of the training rotation. As he gained 1 (one!) pound in 10 days on the last diet I put him on, I'm not altogether hopeful, but still we must try.

Also - no puppy class this week (because of afore mentioned holiday.)

I have tweaked the sheet a little, still trying to settle on a good format for the puppy. The most notable change is probably the addition of a "Daily Practice" list on the left. This is sort of like the Weekly Quiz, the difference being these are items he is still actively learning and perfecting, not finished things ready for Quizzing. However, he does know them too well to warrant prime real estate on the main body of the sheet.

Because I'm working many different skills, it was getting hard for me to find the Do First items from the Do Last things, and so the former are now in black and the latter in gray. Since new things are still in blue, I made latter new things a pale blue. This is probably more detail than any one cares to read, assuming any one cares to read these ramblings at all!

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Keeping the same sheet as Week 45. It’s not that we aren’t working on anything, as we are! The “problem” is we are working on lots of things, and so reaching completion on very few. However, since he’s sponge right now, I hate to pass up the chance to teach new things, even if the execution is, shall we say, less that stellar.

He really is done with new Training Levels 1 Step 3 – I just need to grab a willing (or at least coercible) biped and video the Come Game.

We are also working on his "show dog" skills (mostly Stand, but some gaiting on lead) and socialization.

Lots of socialization!

And taking pictures. He's getting really good at holding still, and Zachary is a rock, so I have high hopes for the future!

Plus plenty of time to run, play with Uncle Zachary, and just be a puppy.

Big Dog Section: Poor, poor Zachary. All training has pretty much stopped until his weight drops. Later this week is the big weigh in, so we’ll see if progress is being made. If not, then we'll have to consider switching to a lower calorie food.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Yes, I missed last week again. I once again made up the sheet but never uploaded it. No, this isn't a intentional trend, just the side effect of having too much to do and not enough time to do it. Given time to train vs. time to computer, I choose the former!

I promise to try to get back into a weekly upload... even it means cutting out the oh-so-wonderful commentary. :)

Accomplished Since Last Time:

We are done with New Levels One Step Three, although I still need to corral my son into videoing the "Come" part with me. I know Henry can do it, and Step 4 as well, and I will probably video them at the same time.

Down is getting better, although still no where near as good as Sit.

His focus is spectacular - the sort you wish you could keep into maturity, but know you really can't. (sigh)

He's fine with cuddling, car rides, is good about the baby gate, his crate, knows how to go to HIS mat, and lets me handle all bits.

We worked a lot on Stand and his focus is very good on that as well.

He's finally got the hang of open handed Zen, once I really focused on it.

Zachary is... well... I hate to say it, but he's fat. After three months of being on a diet he managed to gain four pounds. He's now 77lb and should be 67lb. He'll go back in two weeks and if things aren't going the other direction we'll put him on pudgy dog food, however the real problem is lack of exercise. The puppy doesn't (yet) wear him out and we are too worn out with puppy to give him nice long walks he needs.

Therefore, Zachary has gotten a lot less training time, which is bad. So I decided to run him through the new levels. I figure this way it will seem to him like he's doing something, yet it won't require much work (ie: cookies) to do it.